Twilight (film)
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 Why make a film on a mediocre romantic vampire teen book?
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Twilight is a 2008 American romantic fantasy film based on Stephenie Meyer's novel of the same name. Directed by Catherine Hardwicke, the film stars Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson. It is the first film in The Twilight Saga film series. Twilight premiered in Los Angeles and was theatrically released on November 21, 2008. With the film was released, it received mixed reviews from critics but received negative reviews by many audiences alike. Nevertheless, it performed decently at the box office, grossed over US$393 million worldwide and was later given cult following. It was following sequel, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, was released a year later on November 20, 2009.
Plot
High-school student Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), always a bit of a misfit, doesn't expect life to change much when she moves from sunny Arizona to rainy Washington state. Then she meets Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), a handsome but mysterious teen whose eyes seem to peer directly into her soul. Edward is a vampire whose family does not drink blood, and Bella, far from being frightened, enters into a dangerous romance with her immortal soulmate.
Bad Qualities
- Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson's performances are so lifelessly wooden. An example is that Stewart has almost no emotion and has been known to constantly stutter her lines, while Pattinson's attempt to cover up his British accent is laughable.
- To sum it all up, they didn't do a great job portraying their respective characters.
- The film's dialogue is very corny and laughably uncreative:
- Notable lines include "I can read every mind in this room, apart from yours. Money. Sex. Money. Sex. Cat. And then you? Nothing. It's very frustrating." and "I dream about being with you forever."
- Ridiculous scenes and plot holes, such as the scene where Edward saves Bella from the van just by stopping it with his hand.
- Both Edward and Bella are really unlikable characters who share no chemistry, whatsoever. Edward is an abusive partner, while Bella is very submissive, only falling in love with Edward for his looks.
- There's scene where Edward literally stalks Bella and eavesdropping on her conversations. Not to mention, he also abuses and controls her.
- Also, Edward only loves Bella because she smells good. Yes, you read that right, he's only in love with her because she smells good!
- On top of that, neither Bella nor Edward have any character development.
- Also, Edward abuses Bella throughout their relationship, yet at one point she still loves him for some reason!?
- Horrible morals, such as "It's okay to abuse your partner", "It's okay to become completely and blindly dependent on someone else without regard for logic or mental health", etc.
- Like the book, The Vampires aren't accurate to folklore and are depicted in a more glamorous light sparkling instead of being harmed by sunlight.
- For example, vampires don't sparkle when they walk in the sun, they turn to dust (mostly in modern media), temporarily lose their powers according to older folklore and the novel Dracula, or are unaffected (Draculaura from Monster High is an example of this).
- Terrible special effects.
- Pointless scene where both characters play a game of baseball, which feels like some filler.
- Given that these movies are based on books of the same name that were already bad, mediocre, or good to begin with, they were doomed from the start based off that fact alone.
- In fact, the sequels to this film tend to get even worse as the film series went on.
- Catherine Hardwicke's direction has a few flaws.
Good Qualities
- The film has a rather good grasp of the source material; for instance, it changes the way Bella finds out that Edward is a Vampire by having her find out through research rather than being merely told by Jacob. Like the book, it adapts Vampires so they are venomous which fits Vampire Folklore. So "The Cold Ones" are used as a term for Vampires which fits.
- Not only that but heck, Bella and Edward's actors even look like how Stephanie Meyer envisioned her characters.
- Although the romance and plot aren't very good it's executed extremely well.
- Edward saving Bella when James bites her is executed perfectly and is a great scene. The concept of a vampire saving a human from a vampire bite by sucking the venom out of their system and having to avoid bloodlust to avoid killing her is great.
- Beautiful cinematography.
- Some of the acting is good:
- Peter Facinelli has the best performance in the movie, playing Carlise Cullen, Edward's father.
- Likewise, Billy Burke, who plays Bella's father, Charlie, also ranks up there as well.
- Amazing alternative rock soundtrack by Carter Burwell, especially with songs like "Decode" by Paramore, "Supermassive Black Hole" by Muse and "Leave Out All the Rest" by Linkin Park.
- The original screenplay by Melissa Rosenberg is vastly superior to the end product but was heavily altered due to executive meddling.
Reception
Twilight received mixed reviews from critics, but mostly generally negative audiences alike, while it was praised by the fans of the book series. Based on 219 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 49% and a weighted average score of 5.41/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Having lost much of its bite transitioning to the big screen, Twilight will please its devoted fans, but do little for the uninitiated." On Metacritic, it has a weighted mean score of 56 based on 37 reviews from film critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews.". On IMDb and Letterboxd, the film collected the score of 5.3/10 and 2.8/5.
Chris Stuckmann gave the film an F.
Videos
Trivia
- It spawned the "Still a better love story than Twilight" comments on any YouTube videos, and an Internet meme. The Comment usually pairs a person with another person, a thing, or even an animal with each other, only to make fun of the franchise.
- This film was parodied in the We Bare Bears episode "Shush Ninjas" as "The Solar Eclipse of the Night". The title was a parody of Bonnie Tyler's single "Total Eclipse of the Heart".
- This was the only film in the Twilight Saga that didn't get nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award.
- Twilight was originally scheduled to be theatrically released in the United States on December 12, 2008, but its release date was changed to November 21 after Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was rescheduled for an opening in July 2009.
- It said that the Twilight series incorporated elements of Mormonism, as Meyer is a member of the LDS church. For example, the idea of an eternal marriage with Edward and Bella.
- Stephenie Meyer's paranormal romance novel Twilight was originally distributed by Paramount Pictures' MTV Films in April 2004, but the screenplay that was subsequently developed was substantially different from its source material. When Summit Entertainment reinvented itself as a full-service studio in April 2007, it began development of a film adaptation anew, having picked up the rights from Paramount (who coincidentally had made an unrelated film with the same title in 1998) in a turnaround. The company perceived the film as an opportunity to launch a franchise based on the success of Meyer's book and its sequels.
- A film trivia video game developed by Screenlife Games and published by Konami for the Wii, Nintendo DS, PC and iPhone was released alongside the second film.
Comments
- Cleanup
- 2000s films
- Romance films
- Fantasy films
- Box office hits that received negative feedback
- Based on books
- Summit Entertainment films
- Internet memes
- Live-action films
- Cult films
- Films aware of how bad they are
- Teen comedies
- Edgy films
- Edgy media
- Executive meddling
- Average films
- Horror films
- Comedy films
- Mediocre media